India, April 25 -- Eight years after being promised farm loan waivers, around 656,000 farmers in Maharashtra are still waiting, all because a portal switch caused their data to get corrupted.

The state cooperation department, responsible for implementing the scheme, has admitted to what they are calling a "technical failure". Minister Babasaheb Patil, who heads the department, claims they are still working to resolve the issue.

In a double whammy, these farmers, whose loan waivers have been pending since 2017, were rendered ineligible for a waiver under the successive MVA government, two years later, as their applications were pending under the earlier scheme, a government official revealed.

The loan waiver was unveiled by the first De...